Background

Notes and format last updated Apr 16, 2020

Growth rates

Heat maps

  • The two heat maps below compare how quickly total cases or deaths have grown at various times in our respective geopgraphies.
  • The first plot compares growth rate for total cases; the second, growth rate for total deaths.
  • The metric used is doubling time, by which I mean how quickly total cases or deaths are doubling.
  • The plots track that doubling time at each date for our geographies. Darker colors reflect shorter doubling times, and thus periods of faster growth.
    • You can use the plots to track each geography over time and to compare the geographies to one another.
    • You can also compare the cases and death charts, to see how faster periods of death growth follow faster periods of case growth.

Case growth rates

  • This section charts the growth rate of both total and new cases for each of our respective geographies. Each geography has its own chart, and then that chart will have a trendline for total cases and new cases.
    • There are only plots for the U.S. and states because the numbers for the counties are too small to generate worthwhile trendlines in this section.
  • Each of these two lines using rolling windows to calculate a growth rate for that particular metric. I do the calculation differently for each to smooth out some of large day-to-day discrepancies in new case reporting at the state level.
    • For total cases, the trendlines are a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rates in total cases. We want to see these decline (and almost all are), but they can’t go below zero because total cases can never go down. We at least want them to get as close to zero as possible.
    • For new cases, the trendlines show a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rate in the rolling 7-day average of new cases. Including two rolling periods in this average helps smooth out crazy spikes at the state level that result from large day-to-day changes. Unlike the lines for total cases, we want to watch for the lines for new cases to get consistently below zero and stay there. That means that we are consistently seeing fewer new cases on a daily basis and that we’re on the other side of the “apex.”

U.S.

Our states

Death growth rates

  • This section charts the growth rate of both total and new deaths for each of our respective geographies. Each geography has its own chart, and then that chart will have a trendline for total deaths and new deaths.
    • There are only plots for the U.S. and states because the numbers for the counties are too small to generate worthwhile trendlines in this section.
  • Each of these two lines using rolling windows to calculate a growth rate for that particular metric. I do the calculation differently for each to smooth out some of large day-to-day discrepancies in new death reporting at the state level.
    • For total deaths, the trendlines are a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rates in total cases. We want to see these decline (and almost all are), but they can’t go below zero because total deaths can never go down. We at least want them to get as close to zero as possible.
    • For new deaths, the trendlines show a rolling 3-day average of daily growth rate in the rolling 7-day average of new cases. Including two rolling periods in this average helps smooth out crazy spikes at the state level that result from large day-to-day changes. Unlike the lines for total deaths, we want to watch for the lines for new deaths to get consistently below zero and stay there. That means that we are consistently seeing fewer new deaths on a daily basis and that we’re on the other side of the “apex.”

U.S.

Our states

By population rankings

This section tracks metrics for states and counties normalized for population (number of cases or deaths per million residents), and then compares these figures both for our geographies and the country overall.

States

  • This section shows tables ranking all 50 states for per populations rates of total cases, new cases, total deaths, and new deaths.
  • For each metric, in addition to the tables, the trends for the top states are plotted over time.
    • We only plot the top ten states for each metric so that the plots aren’t too crowded. But you can view the full 50-state rankings in the tables.

Total confirmed cases

Table of total confirmed cases per million residents (all 50 states)
State Cases Per Million
New York 12,724
New Jersey 9,998
Massachusetts 5,751
Connecticut 5,557
Louisiana 5,275
Rhode Island 4,804
District of Columbia 4,147
Michigan 3,196
Delaware 2,818
Pennsylvania 2,656
Illinois 2,486
Maryland 2,263
South Dakota 1,904
Colorado 1,754
Georgia 1,737
Indiana 1,735
Washington 1,600
Mississippi 1,516
Vermont 1,307
Florida 1,259
Nevada 1,243
Ohio 1,105
New Hampshire 1,064
Virginia 1,053
Alabama 1,035
Tennessee 1,027
Iowa 1,006
Utah 1,002
Missouri 946
New Mexico 939
Idaho 916
South Carolina 862
California 857
Nebraska 851
North Dakota 822
Wisconsin 772
Kansas 697
Arizona 695
Texas 691
Kentucky 682
Oklahoma 677
Arkansas 653
Maine 650
North Carolina 644
Wyoming 547
West Virginia 506
Oregon 463
Minnesota 437
Alaska 436
Hawaii 408
Montana 405
Puerto Rico 392
American Samoa NA
Guam NA
Northern Mariana Islands NA
Virgin Islands NA

New confirmed cases

Table of new cases per million residents: rolling 3-day average (all 50 states)
State New Cases Per Million
New Jersey 388
New York 306
Rhode Island 287
Connecticut 281
Massachusetts 253
District of Columbia 213
Delaware 144
Maryland 116
Ohio 108
Illinois 103
South Dakota 103
Pennsylvania 101
Louisiana 100
Iowa 89
North Dakota 82
Mississippi 80
Indiana 75
Nebraska 74
Michigan 65
Colorado 61
Virginia 58
Georgia 56
New Mexico 41
Utah 41
Kentucky 39
New Hampshire 39
California 37
Florida 35
Alabama 34
Kansas 34
Nevada 33
Washington 32
Arkansas 30
Missouri 28
North Carolina 28
Tennessee 28
Arizona 25
Wisconsin 25
West Virginia 24
Minnesota 23
South Carolina 22
Texas 22
Puerto Rico 19
Vermont 19
Oklahoma 18
Idaho 13
Oregon 13
Maine 11
Hawaii 7
Wyoming 6
Alaska 5
Montana 3
American Samoa NA
Guam NA
Northern Mariana Islands NA
Virgin Islands NA

Total deaths

Table of total deaths per million residents (all 50 states)
State Deaths Per Million
New York 737
New Jersey 492
Connecticut 373
Louisiana 285
Massachusetts 262
Michigan 246
District of Columbia 148
Rhode Island 146
Illinois 107
Pennsylvania 106
Washington 86
Maryland 85
Indiana 84
Colorado 77
Delaware 73
Georgia 72
Vermont 60
Mississippi 56
Nevada 52
Ohio 43
Wisconsin 39
Florida 38
Oklahoma 36
Virginia 35
Kansas 34
Kentucky 34
Alabama 33
Missouri 32
California 30
New Hampshire 30
New Mexico 27
Arizona 26
Idaho 26
Maine 26
Iowa 25
Minnesota 25
South Carolina 24
Tennessee 23
Texas 18
Nebraska 17
North Carolina 17
North Dakota 17
Oregon 17
West Virginia 14
Arkansas 13
Puerto Rico 13
Montana 11
Alaska 9
Utah 8
Hawaii 7
South Dakota 7
Wyoming 3
American Samoa NA
Guam NA
Northern Mariana Islands NA
Virgin Islands NA

New deaths

Table of new deaths per million residents: rolling 3-day average (all 50 states)
State New Deaths Per Million
Connecticut 27
New York 26
New Jersey 20
Massachusetts 19
Rhode Island 11
District of Columbia 8
Louisiana 8
Michigan 8
Pennsylvania 8
Illinois 5
Maryland 5
Colorado 3
Delaware 3
Georgia 3
Mississippi 3
Indiana 2
Ohio 2
Virginia 2
Washington 2
California 1
Florida 1
Iowa 1
Kansas 1
Kentucky 1
Maine 1
Minnesota 1
Montana 1
Nebraska 1
Nevada 1
New Hampshire 1
New Mexico 1
North Dakota 1
Vermont 1
West Virginia 1
Wisconsin 1
Alabama 0
Alaska 0
Arizona 0
Arkansas 0
Hawaii 0
Idaho 0
Missouri 0
North Carolina 0
Oklahoma 0
Oregon 0
South Carolina 0
South Dakota 0
Tennessee 0
Texas 0
Utah 0
Wyoming 0
Puerto Rico -1
American Samoa NA
Guam NA
Northern Mariana Islands NA
Virgin Islands NA

Counties

  • This section focuses on the county level. It shows tables with our counties ranked by percentile of U.S. counties for per population rates of total cases and total deaths.
    • Each table also shows the top five counties in the country in addition to our counties, for added perspecive.
  • In addition to the tables, our counties’ percentile for both total cases and total deaths are plotted over time.

Confirmed cases

Table showing total cases per million and percentile for all US counties. Includes our counties and the top 5 in the US for perspective.
County State Cases Per Million Raw Ranking Percentile
New York New York 84,003 1 99
Marion Ohio 31,847 2 99
Rockland New York 29,028 3 99
Westchester New York 25,122 4 99
Nassau New York 22,608 5 99
Davidson Tennessee 2,523 201 93
Richland South Carolina 1,580 402 87
Pierce Washington 1,319 488 84
York South Carolina 566 1173 62
Orange California 528 1238 60

Our county percentiles over time

Deaths

Table showing total deaths per million and percentile for all US counties. Includes our counties and the top 5 in the US for perspective.
County State Deaths Per Million Raw Ranking Percentile
New York New York 6,145 1 99
Randolph Georgia 2,213 2 99
Terrell Georgia 2,110 3 99
Nassau New York 1,207 4 99
Dougherty Georgia 1,114 5 99
Pierce Washington 38 662 78
Richland South Carolina 34 713 77
Davidson Tennessee 29 784 75
York South Carolina 11 1095 65
Orange California 10 1099 65

Our county percentiles over time

Raw counts

Total confirmed cases

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

New confirmed cases

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

Total deaths

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

New deaths

U.S.

Our states

Our counties

Stay-at-home comparisons